Identification of Consistent and Inconsistent Schools

Background

• The Spike-and-Slab Mixed-Effects Location Scale model (SS-MELSM) methodology identifies clustering units (students, classrooms, etc.) that exhibit unusual levels of residual variability—such as consistency or inconsistency—in academic achievement.

• Higher (>.75) Posterior Inclusion Probability (PIP) of the scale random effect is evidence of unusual variability.

• ivd is a package that facilitates the implementation of the SS-MELSM.

Research question

• The final goal is to enhance the visualizations currently provided by the ivd package.

Method

• Standardized math scores from 11,386 11th and 12th-grade students across 160 schools.

• I will work with posterior estimates from the scale model:

  • PIPs,
  • random effects standard deviations,
  • within-school residual variance, and
  • math scores.

Improvements to existing plots

PIP plot

Improvements to existing plots

Funnel plot

Improvements to existing plots

Outcome plot

New plots

Sugarloaf plots